


Kings and Queens

by teaberryblue



Series: Earth-1796 [4]
Category: Iron Man (Comic), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Earth-1796, Emotional Manipulation, High School, Love Triangle, Obsession, Other, Pining, Prequel to 1796 Broadway, Sabotage, Sociopathy, Ty-centric, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 07:11:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2141799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaberryblue/pseuds/teaberryblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ty only ever acts in Tony's best interests, even if no one else sees it that way.</p><p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/972937/chapters/1912625">1796 Broadway</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings and Queens

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [1796 Broadway](https://archiveofourown.org/works/972937) by [rainproof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainproof/pseuds/rainproof), [teaberryblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaberryblue/pseuds/teaberryblue). 



> Slight content warning:
> 
> This fic does not contain any explicit underage sex, but does contain rather frank descriptions and dialogue involving underage teens having consensual sex with each other. 
> 
> There are also some fairly egregious invasions of personal space and boundaries, enough so that while it doesn't involve issues of consent during a sexual act, definitely involves a level of creepiness. 
> 
> Thanks to GreyPrince and Rainproof for the beta reading!!!

Meredith glared daggers at Ty all through prom, over Tony's shoulder- she was still a good two inches taller than Tony, and the heels of her dazzling gold shoes made her tower over nearly everyone in the room, including the teachers. When Tony won the crown for Prom King, looking adorably shy and awkward and very much as if he half-expected someone to dump a barrel of pig's blood on his head, he let Ty cut in on the customary dance with the Prom Queen, and made a beeline for Meredith. He kissed her sweetly (everything was too sweet with Tony), and put his crown on her head, nestling it in that golden mane of hair.

They were perfectly matched.

Tony and Meredith didn't even dance that night, they swayed in each other's arms like willow trees, stupid grins plastered on each other's faces, her hair gleaming in the reflected light of his crown, and Tony didn't give Ty a second look. Never mind that Ty had diligently campaigned for Tony to win, never mind that he'd rigged the ballot. 

Ty's date, the prom queen, Jennifer or Jessica or some other J-name, two years older, stopped him, mid-dance. 

"You like her, don't you?"

"Hm?" Ty asked, as he contemplated the way Tony's hair curled around his ears. Tony needed a haircut; he'd told Tony to get a haircut so their prom photos would be perfect, but now, disheveled and distracted, Tony looked like some kind of Grecian statue, and Ty decided it was all right that he'd forgotten. As usual.

"Meredith," said J-name. "Your friend's girlfriend. You've been staring at her all night."

"Oh." Ty drew his attention back to his date. 

She laughed. "It's okay. It's your best friend's girlfriend. It must be shitty, having to hang around them all the time. I had one of those, too. At least he doesn't go to this school. Ugh, awkward."

"She's very pretty, isn't she?" Ty asked, shifting his gaze from Tony to his date.

"She's okay, I guess," said J-name. "Kind of Midwest corn-dog, if you ask me. She has fat arms."

"Are those fat arms?" Ty asked. They didn't look that different from the arms of the other girls in the room. 

"Look, if it makes you feel any better, I couldn't tell you what she sees in him. He's, like, fifteen, right? He's short and he's got, like, _no_ definition."

Ty twitched, and forced himself to relax. "I'm fifteen. He's my best friend," he reminded her.

"But you're the cute one," said J-name. "I wouldn't have gone to prom with him."

Ty's opinion of J-name was plummeting, even as she pressed herself closer, led his hands lower, so that he could feel, through the prom-taffeta of her dress, that she wasn't wearing panties. 

He raised an eyebrow at her. 

"I'm captain of the softball team,"  
She informed him, and she stole another glance at Meredith. 

"Are you?" Ty asked.

"Mmhmm," said J-name. "Do you know what that means?"

"I haven't the faintest," he replied.

She leaned forward, her lips brushing his cheek, the sticky grease of lip gloss against his skin, the scents of astringent, baby powder, and vanilla cake too close.

"I have keys to the storage closet," she whispered in his ear.

Ty weighed his options for a moment, before he slid his hands lower still, pulled her in possessively, let his eyes flick over to be certain they were in Tony's line of sight, and kissed her.

"Let's go."

\------

"Where'd you go last night?" Meredith asked him the next day, in the early afternoon, when the three of them converged on the local diner.

Tony, as usual, was late. Ty and Meredith sat across from each other in the booth, Meredith looking down at her menu, deliberately avoiding his gaze. 

"Go?" Ty asked.

"You and Emily disappeared."

"Emily?" Ty asked. "Who's Emily?"

That got Meredith's attention. She put her menu down, folded her arms long across the table, and eyed him sharply. "Your _date_."

"I thought her name was Jessica," Ty replied.

"Jessica was the girl you dumped to take Emily. They don't even look alike, Ty."

"They both have black hair."

"Jessica's _Jewish_ and Emily's _Chinese_."

"Are you...being racist?"

"What? No, what the fuck."

Meredith scowled and rolled her eyes. "Tony said you kissed him."

"What?" Ty asked, twisting in his seat to face the pretty blonde. "Why would he say that?"

Meredith glared at him, one hand twisting around the end of her ponytail.

"I swear, Ty, you need to stop treating the rest of us like we're stupid. Tony doesn't just make shit up."

"Tony lies all the time," Ty replied. "He lied to Howard two days ago about the sailboat--"

"Out of desperation," Meredith replied. "Because his dad is a dickhead and you convince him to do some stupid, stupid things sometimes. You're the one who fabricates stories on a whim."

Ty pulled back from her, sizing her up with a steady gaze. "So I kissed him," he said. "So what?"

"He's my boyfriend, Ty," Meredith said calmly.

"He's my best friend," Ty countered.

"You can't just kiss anybody you feel like."

"I can if they don't stop me," Ty answered, leveling a crooked smile at her. "What's the matter, Mere? Feeling threatened?"

"What?" She asked, snorting. "Threatened? Of you? God, no, Ty. Tony doesn't think of you that way. You're his friend. And if you keep it up, you're not even going to be that anymore."

"He wouldn't ditch me," Ty retorted. "I'm his oldest friend."

"Next year in Boston--"

"Cambridge. MIT is in Cambridge."

"Whatever. You know what I mean. Next year. It's not just going to be the three of us anymore."

"We're three baby wunderkinds at a school full of rich, smart people who are going to have something up their asses about being bested by child prodigies," Ty answered. "Believe me, it's going to be the three of us."

The bells on the door to the diner clanged; Tony was pushing it open with both hands, swimming in clothing at least a size too large, even in a year of oversized fashion. One of his hands was bandaged-- it had, Ty recalled, with consternation, been fine the night before. 

"Not if I can help it," Meredith retorted, in a low hiss, leaning over the booth table, her eyes fixed on Tony, and she tossed that long, gleaming ponytail so the golden strands flared out behind her head. She pasted a smile on her face, but it was only forced for a minute, and by the time Tony reached the booth, giddy and grinning like a fool, her eyes were dancing. Tony crawled in beside her, their limbs tangling up, her leg slung over his, his head resting on her shoulder. They whispered cutesy nicknames at each other; he called her Proton, she called him Electron, and in that moment, it seemed like the most accurate possible description of what they were, he revolving around her.

They ordered their food; Tony and Meredith were, as always, splitting their order, because of course, if it wasn't already bad enough, they liked all the same foods. Ty grimaced as they ordered bacon and corned beef hash with their eggs and potato pancakes. He got his favorite thing on the menu, an omelette with peppers and mushrooms and Swiss cheese, a heaping helping of home fries. 

Ty tried to fix his eyes on his ice water, but they kept slipping up to Tony, to the curve of his lips as he pressed them to Meredith's cheek, to the way light glimmered in his dark eyes, to his soft, dark curls, unwashed and losing their shape. The condensation on his glass looked too much like the sweat drops Tony wiped away from his brow. 

"You look left out," Tony pronounced, and he straightened up, looking intently back at Ty. "Where'd you go last night?"

Tony gave Ty a lopsided sort of smile. "You hook up with Emily?"

"Yeah," Ty said with a grin. "She's captain of the soccer team."

"Softball," Meredith corrected, rolling her eyes.

"Eh, who cares what sport? She had keys to a storage closet."

"How do you do that?" Meredith asked. "You didn't even remember her name and she left the prom with you?"

"Actually," Ty answered. "I think she was jealous. She caught me watching the two of you."

"Ugh," said Meredith. When he'd first met her, watched the way Tony was drawn to her as if she were a gravitational force, he'd thought he could win her over. But she had to be so damned headstrong. Worse, she didn't make idle threats; she acted on her words.

He was going to have to do something about that. 

Tony, on the other hand, was laughing and asking questions about Emily that would have sounded crass coming from anyone else, but just sounded puckishly earnest from Tony's mouth. 

Meredith glared at him, her blue eyes steely.

Their food came.

He smiled back at her beatifically, put up with the now-routine teasing over his pile of vegetables and the way he involuntarily cringed away from the scent of bacon. 

"Bacon!" Tony exclaimed cheerily, shoving an entire strip in his mouth, smacking his lips. "Come on, Ty, don't you miss it?"

"Not as much as I'd miss you," Ty answered sweetly.

Jarvis, kindly old Jarvis, Tony's family butler, picked the three of them up from the diner. Tony called shotgun in the enthusiastic, naive way of someone who expected his two closest friends to be in the best of terms, and chattered away like a bird at the man, told him about prom-- described the food, in glorious detail, winning his crown, dancing, what songs they'd played. 

The back seat was tense and silent.

On Long Island, class distinctions showed as clear as the ones Fitzgerald wrote in _The Great Gatsby_ , even sixty years later. There was so much wealth that people grouped themselves, divided by how and when they had come into money. Meredith's family fortune was built on computing tech, and Ty's on television, in the last two decades, while the Stark family fortune had been cobbled together in bits and pieces over centuries: a shipyard in Boston, a foundry in Philadelphia, a factory in New York.

Meredith and Ty lived in a neighborhood of sweeping, curved roads that cut through expansive emerald lawns, modern homes with sheer glass walls and exposed stone, bizarre bastard children of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Levitt houses. Their swimming pools glimmered like jewels, reflecting sunlight up to the heavens; the landscaping carefully mimicked nature in a way that seemed all too artificial, something akin to a miniature railroad set, scaled up to life. 

Tony lived in the old money part of town, down a long old coach road hooded by maples and oaks as old as the nation, so thick with foliage that the sun filtered down yellow-green in early summer. The road was lined by ivy-covered walls, fitted here and there by gates and even the occasional gatekeeper's house, relics of a bygone age.

The gate at the Stark house had been electrified, and opened with the push of a button from inside the car. Jarvis drove them up the long driveway, then let them out by the service entrance to the mansion, before wheeling away up to his own house, tucked away in a little wood up a small hill from the main house, just past the rose gardens.

They clambered into the kitchen; Tony rummaged in a door and found a bag or miniature chocolate bars, tossed one to Meredith and one to Ty, and the three of them took a half-gallon of orange juice and a bottle of champagne out of the fridge and trudged up to the pond, stripped down to their underwear, and splashed into the green water. It wasn't deep; sitting, the water came up to Ty's chest, Meredith's collarbone, Tony's shoulders.

They drank mimosas out of plastic cups, splashed each other, giggled, and, as the alcohol went to their heads, their conversations turned silly, and perhaps more sincere. 

"We're going to room together," Tony said, slinging an arm over Ty's shoulders. "We can automate our dorm room, build a robot who makes our beds..."

Ty laughed, and his neck prickled at Tony's clammy-warm arm against his skin. "It's too bad we can't have co-ed roommates," he said, with a half-smile, half-sneer, shrugging at Meredith. "It seems like a shame to break up the party."

"That's okay," Tony said, and he stretched a foot out, pressing his toes to Meredith's. "We're going to get married."

Meredith snorted and splashed his with pond water-- splashed them both with pond water, since Tony's arm was still slung around Ty. "Not for a long time," she retorted.

"But someday, yeah?" Tony asked , on a tone so plaintive that it made the hair on the back of Ty's neck stand on end.

Meredith looked at Tony, only Tony, blue eyes locked on him like he was the only thing in the world, and she leaned back on her hands, still in the water, tilting her head. Her hair, slick with water, was a few shades darker than usual; her eyes were that same sparking blue as always. Her nose-- small, round, buttonlike if one were being flattering, puglike if one were not-- wrinkled, freckles dancing.

"Yeah," she said. "After college. Someday."

And then she skated her hand through the water, sending it splashing up in a fan at both of the boys. Tony laughed, and ripped himself from Ty to tackle her.

Meredith squealed, kicked at Tony playfully. 

"That's it," he said. "We're engaged."

Meredith choked out a laugh. "What?!" she asked. Tony tugged her close and leaned his head against her shoulder, possessive and tender all at once. 

"Marry me," Tony said. "When we graduate. And then we'll build things. Cars, and robots, and spaceships, and we'll be the first civilians to the moon."

"Tony," Meredith said softly, as she tangled her arms with his. "Tony, we're fifteen. We're-- you're not _even_ fifteen."

"Three weeks," Tony answered, as if that made a difference. 

"Let's worry about graduation first, huh?" Meredith said.

Ty pursed his lips. "At least someone around here has common sense."

But Tony's expression went blank, and he looked down. Ty was sure Meredith didn't see it, she couldn't see it, with his head against her shoulder. 

Ty cracked some joke, Tony laughed, and they went on, chatting about school, about Tony's birthday, about their plans for the summer. Meredith was going to the south of France with her parents for a month, as always. Ty's parents were sending him off to Bruges, and he made some small talk with Meredith about meeting up for a weekend, even though they both knew that they were lying through their teeth for Tony's benefit. 

Tony was working for his father. Again. For the whole summer. For free.

"You can't let him keep doing that to you," Ty insisted. "It's abuse, the way he uses you for free labor."

"Ask if you can come to Marseille for a week," Meredith said eagerly. "We'd love to have you."

Tony shook his head. "Your parents hate me, Mere," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if they weren't all well aware of it. 

"They hate Howard, not you," she insisted stubbornly.

"Well, they're looking for a reason to hate me, too."

When the champagne was finished, they dragged themselves out of the pond, ran through the grass to the poolhouse, and wrapped themselves in huge, fluffy towels.

They went back to the kitchen, helped themselves to cheese, crackers, cookies, sandwich meat, giddy from the champagne. Meredith's cheeks were pink, Tony's ears were tinged red. 

Nine o' clock came, and Meredith groaned with dismay at the reminder of her curfew. She got up from her stool, and it tottered, and Tony nearly leapt from his, and clasped at her hands, and cajoled her to stay. 

"I can't," Meredith said, disappointedly. "I have to...ugh...get my stuff from you room..."

She kissed him, and he kissed her back, and soon their tongue were tangled, their eyes locked, they were cooing and murmuring and pressing themselves against each other. 

"I'll get Mere's stuff," Ty offered, hopping down off his stool. 

There might have been murmurs of thanks mixed in between the groans, the soft pleas and protestations, the reminder that the McCalls really wouldn't like Tony if he kept their daughter past her curfew. 

Ty gathered up Meredith's things-- the slinky little sundress, the prim cardigan, two pearl earrings, her denim purse. 

He paused, unzipped the purse, and peered inside.

Girly things: lip gloss, a tampon, a little pad and pen with a pink heart topper. There was a keychain, a stray earring, a pack of chicklets.

He opened her wallet: pink leather, printed with hearts.

Thirty-six dollars, a school ID, a British Pound, and a penny with a heart cut in it. The business card from her therapist, and one from her clarinet teacher. An American Express card, with her father’s name on it. A pressed four-leaf clover. A photo of her and Tony, kissing. A piece of paper signed by all the members of the cast of the school production of "Fiddler on the Roof (ironically, tall, blonde, Irish Catholic Meredith had been Yente, the matchmaker). Two condoms and an empty condom wrapper- that was a new piece of information. And a folded up piece of looseleaf paper.

He glanced over his shoulder, assured himself that the door was shut before unfolding it.

The paper was crammed full, tiny letter in Tony's instantly-recognizable handwriting, that was at once perfect yet careless: the hand of someone who had practiced dutifully and meticulously, had learned to print clearly and neatly as a matter of course, and, once satisfied with his progress, had become careless.

Ty scanned the letter, but it was too long to read when Meredith was waiting for her things. He eyed a few choice phrases with a scowl-- declarations of love, an ease of communication, emotion Ty had never seen from Tony.

And some language that made his cheeks flush, made the back of his neck go hot and his breath leave him, even if the words weren’t directed at him. 

He put back the note, folded the wallet, stuck it under Tony's bed, kicked one of Tony’s sneakers under the bed along with it, and brought Meredith her purse and her clothes. 

Meredith, significantly more mussed than when Ty had left, gave Tony one last kiss, and then went out to Jarvis' waiting car. 

Ty couldn't help but grin when she disappeared out the door.

The boys took a bag of chips, a half-gallon of ice cream, and two bottles of beer, went up to Tony's room, and sprawled on the sofa, playing games on Tony's Atari system.

Well, rather, Tony played the games, and chattered on and on, waved for Ty's attention whenever he reached a particularly exciting part, and explained strategies in minute detail.

Ty didn't mind watching, watching Tony's small, deft hands maneuver the joystick, watching the way Tony hunched over, leaning in toward the television screen, watching the way his shoulders jerked and swayed whenever he moved his character to the left or right, the way his eyes lit up whenever he managed to complete a particularly difficult task.

Ty imagined grabbing Tony by the scruffy curls at the back of his neck, twisting his head back, pushing Tony down into the thick pile of the carpet and kissing him again, brutally, following the lines of his body with his mouth, watching Tony writhe naked beneath him, repeating for Tony everything that Emily had done for him in that dusty, cramped closet, fulfill all the fantasies Tony had teased out in his note to Meredith.

But instead he watched, watched the way Tonys curls brushed the nape of his neck, the way his shoulders rolled forward when he concentrated. 

Ty wasn't sure how late it was when Tony, bleary-eyed, turned to him and declared it time to go to bed. Ty had nearly dozed off, himself, and he staggered up from his seat on the sofa, a little grumpily. 

Tony leaned into him as they stumbled toward Tony's bed, and Ty inhaled the scent of Tony's hair: baby shampoo, he still used baby shampoo on those beautiful curls, and Ivory soap. He thought about kissing him again; he was so close and so warm, but he was certain Tony wouldn't respond well to that. Instead, he put an arm around Tony's slender shoulders, led him to bed, crawled in beside him, and tried not to breathe too heavily when Tony bowed his head against Ty's chest.

Like always, Tony didn't fall right to sleep. He began chattering, about a particularly tricky coding problem, about the numerical nature of computation and how the lack of nuance in arrays of numbers didn't loan itself to coding for artificial intelligence. 

Ty agreed, sleepily, and told Tony they'd talk about it in the morning. 

Tony kept describing an idea for a new programming language with a more organic grammar, his words slowing and growing softer until his eyelids lowered, heavy. 

Ty waited until Tony's breathing slowed to a gentle snooze. He leaned forward, ran a single index finger down Tony's cheek, kissed him, as gently as he could, on his clavicle.

His own breath quickened, his heart thrumming in his chest like a swarm of bees, and he gulped, trying to swallow the warmth that rose in him. Tony's lips were so close, so full, so flush. Ty could have reached out, grabbed him by the shoulder, the waist, caressed a hand over his hipbone, slid a finger beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts.

Instead, he tugged his hands tightly to himself, gritted his teeth, and squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to sleep with a stubborn ferocity that made sleep impossible.

The last number he saw on Tony's digital clock was 2:38.

He woke up before Tony, too, sudden and wide awake. He got dressed, wandered downstairs, and said good morning to Jarvis and to Mrs. Stark, who barely tried to conceal the aerial photography she was marking up with a red pen. She glanced up, gave Ty a sharp look, and asked where Tony was.

"Still asleep, Ma'am," he answered politely. "May I help myself to some breakfast?" 

Mrs. Stark shrugged noncommittally, which Ty took as permission, and he went into the kitchen, poured himself a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. On further thought, he did the same for Tony, and bobbled the breakfast dishes back out through the dining room and the parlor, up the stairs and down the long hall to Tony's room. 

He sat down on the sofa, crunching on his cereal as he watched Tony sleep. Tony had kicked the covers off one leg, and a bony ankle, just barely touched with the first tan of late Spring, poked out from under the sheets.

He smiled to himself, eyeing that pale brown skin against a field of royal blue. 

Tony stirred as the sun rose higher and poured, fierce and direct, through the window. He groaned, rubbed his eyes, and burrowed his face against the pillow. 

"Forgetting something?" Ty asked, his voice lilting, a touch of laughter in it.

"Oh!"

Tony shot up, all wide brown eyes and rumpled hair. 

"Hey there, Captain America," Ty said cheerily, nodding at the cartoon face on Tony's comforter. 

Tony instinctively pulled the blanket toward him. "Morning."

"I got you breakfast," Ty said, and he ran a hand carelessly through his hair. 

Tony clambered out of bed and made his way over to where Ty was sitting. He sat down next to him on the sofa, took his bowl, and tucked in.

" I can't believe you're up," Tony said. "And dressed."

"I can't believe you still have Captain America sheets," Ty teased.

"Careful," Tony answered. "I could put them on your bed at college, and you'll never get a girl to even look at you again."

"I think girls at MIT looking at me is technically statutory rape for the next year or so," Ty retorted. " I wasn't getting my hopes up."

Tony waggled his eyebrows. "They don't need to know that."

"They will if they see your scrawny ass with your Captain America sheets following me around," Ty said.

"Excuse me? Who follows who around?" 

Tony laughed and munched on his cereal. 

When Tony stood up, he stripped off his boxers without blinking and eye, and ambled toward his dresser. Ty bit down on his lower lip, his gaze sliding down the slight curve of Tony's ass, the lanky lines of his thighs.

Tony grabbed a clean pair of underwear, pulled them on unceremoniously, and puttered around the room, acquiring additional items of clothing as he went. Tee shirt, jeans, socks, one sneaker, and then he frowned.

"You see my other shoe?" Tony asked.

"Uhhh..." Ty trailed off and tried not to look at the red sneaker, tried not to look at the pink wallet. Instead, he let his eyes sweep over the room before staring directly at the missing shoe. 

"Is that it?" He asked, kicking out to point with a toe. "Under the bed?"

"Oh, oh, yeah, oh, fuck," Tony said and he pulled out first the shoe and then the wallet. 

"What's that?" Ty asked. 

"Mere's wallet," said Tony. “Shit. She’s always dropping stuff.” 

He thumbed through it, frowning, then shut it. “And I have to go to that thing with my dad, and--” 

Ty shrugged. “No problem,” he said. “I can take it over.” 

He held out a hand.

Tony frowned. “You sure?” 

“Yeah, it’s fine; it’s just, like, four blocks. I’ll walk over when I get home.” 

Tony considered this a moment, then grinned. “Thanks,” he said. 

Ty asked his father to stop at the pharmacy on the way home. He bought a magazine, a couple of candy bars, and a box that made the clerk raise an eyebrow, all on Meredith’s father’s credit card. 

“It’s for a school science project,” he said, innocently. 

He took one of the candy bars out of the bag and ate it in front of his father on the way home, chattering cheerfully with her about prom and his sleepover with Tony and what he wanted to do for the summer. 

“Tony’s dad is being an asshole again,” he mentioned. “He wants him to work for free for the summer.”

“Sounds like Howard Stark,” said Ty’s father. “You know he’s welcome here. We can make up the guest room for him.” 

Ty groaned and bit off another square of chocolate. “He’s fine in my room. I...I don’t think his parents will let him, but I’ll ask.” 

He had his father drop him off at Meredith’s house, explaining about the wallet, and he took it out and waved it at him.

As soon as his father pulled away, he took the pharmacy receipt and put it in the wallet, rearranged Tony’s note and one of the condom wrappers so that they were peeking out above the fold. 

Meredith’s mother answered the door, not looking at all pleased to see him. “Is Tony with you?” was the first word out of her mouth.

“No, ma’am,” Ty answered. “I just have to leave this for Mere; she, uh, she left it at Tony’s,” he explained. 

He held up the wallet. “Is she home?” 

“She’s out with her father,” her mother explained. 

Ty nodded. “Should I, uh? You want me to leave this with you?”

Mrs. McCall smiled and held out a hand. “Sure; I’ll make sure she gets it.”

“Can I bother you to use your bathroom?” Ty asked hopefully, and shifted his feet with feigned discomfort. 

“You know where it is?” asked Mrs. McCall, and the woman backed into the hall. 

He grinned. “Yeah, thanks.”

In Meredith’s bathroom, he opened the box he’d purchased and pulled out one of the two pregnancy tests. He unwrapped it, put the wrapper back in the box and the unused stick in his back pocket. 

He put the box in the cabinet under the sink, in plain view to anyone who might open it. 

He used the toilet, flushed, washed his hands, and jogged down the stairs, shooting Mrs. McCall an affable smile as he headed for the front door. He waved, and chirped a goodbye.

She looked so much like Meredith, he thought: tall and slender, blonde, freckled. And she was sitting at the coffee table in the living room, those freckles standing out bright against skin that had gone terribly pale, barely acknowledging Ty’s departure, her eyes fixed on the contents of Meredith’s wallet, a pharmacy receipt in one hand and a condom in the other. 

Ty whistled to himself all the way home. 

It took eight hours and twenty-two minutes for Tony to call. Ty counted, on his watch, straightening up with a start every time the phone rang. He didn't answer it, didn't want to seem overeager, and when each series of rings was met with silence, he felt satisfied in his decision.

Then, the house intercom beeped. "Ty," his father said, "it's Tony for you."

"I was gonna get in the shower, Dad," Ty answered. "Tell him I'll call him back in, like, twenty minutes?"

He pulled off his pants and turned on the water.

"He sounds upset," his father replied.

Ty groaned loudly. "Yeah, okay. I'll hurry up. Or you can tell him to come over."

He didn't wait for a response. He got in the shower, turned the knob until the water pounded out of the shower head, steamy and scalding and marking his pale skin with patches of pink.

He stayed in the shower for more than twenty minutes, until the water went from scalding to merely warm.

He heard the bathroom doorknob click, the rubber soles of Tony’s sneakers on the wet tiles. 

He didn’t stop the shower; he waited for the other boy to peek around the curtain. Tony’s eyes were red, nose raw, hair fluffed up around his face like he’d been running his fingers through it compulsively.

And he stopped, as if he were surprised, and shut off the water.  
“You okay?” he asked. “What the hell, did somebody die?” 

“I--” 

Tony just stood there.

Ty climbed out of the shower, and didn’t bother with a towel. He wrapped his arms around the other boy. “Tony. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

“Ty, you’re soaking,” Tony said, and he jerked back a step. “And, uh. Naked.” 

“Sorry!” Ty exclaimed, and he hastily dried himself off, then wrapped the towel around his waist. “You just looked so sad, I sort of--” 

Ty looked down for a moment, then slung an arm around Tony’s shoulders, and steered Tony out of the bathroom. 

“You need something?” Ty asked. “Water? Coke? Beer?” 

“Your parents don’t let us drink,” Tony said skeptically. 

“I could make an exception for the way you look,” Ty replied. 

Tony's expression was positively mournful; his skin had a gray pallor to it. 

“Beer it is.” 

Ty scooted Tony toward his bed, pressed down on his shoulders until Tony collapsed into a hunched-over pile on the bed.

Ty let the towel fall to the floor before he rummaged in his drawers, taking a good, long time to find clothing. He knew Tony was watching him, even with his back to him, he could feel Tony's big, dark eyes following, fixed on his shoulder blades. He didn’t dare look back over his shoulder, or Tony would look away, like he always did, hastily squashing the unbridled curiosity in his gaze and turning his eyes toward the floor, the wall, the lamp, anything but the muscles of Ty’s back. 

Instead, he smiled to himself, tugged on a pair of shorts without underwear, and his Captain America tee shirt-- Tony’s favorite tee shirt, and stepped back over to Tony, smoothing his hair down.

For a brief moment, he leaned too close, felt compelled to kiss him, but tore himself away before he did anything rash. “I’ll be right back,” he said. 

He took his time, strolling downstairs and down the hall to the garage with slow, languid strides, giving himself enough time for his pulse to slow, pulling two beers from the garage refrigerator, where no one would notice them missing.

He walked back into his room a few minutes later. Tony had kicked his sneakers off, pulled his feet onto Ty’s bed, and was sitting in a softly shuddering ball.

“Tony?” Ty asked. He sat down beside him, held out a beer. He put the other beer down to stroke Tony’s back comfortingly. “Tony, come on, you okay?” 

Tony took the beer, took a swig, and shook his head. 

Ty slid a little closer. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong, T?” 

Tony's lip quivered. 

"M-mere," he answered. 

Ty gave him a pat on the shoulder. "You guys fight? Tony, you know you fight fight about stupid stuff and make up the next day. Just call her. Buy her roses or something." 

Tony took several gasping breaths, as if he was going to hyperventilate. "It's not..."

"What?" Ty asked, and he returned to stroking Tony's back. 

"Her dad called," Tony said, his voice choked and reedy. 

"Is she okay?" Ty asked, making sure that his tone reflected the appropriate amount of concern. 

"I-- I don't know what happened, just that...Howard was pissed. Her dad said he didn't want us seeing each other.”

Tony’s hands curled into fists, and he threw Ty off him and punched the wall, suddenly. It didn’t do much; he hissed and shook his fist, then rubbed at his knuckles. “I got some fucking Howard-lecture about destroying my future and self-control and you know what, fuck them.”

Ty took a deep breath. “I mean, Tony,” he said. “You were kind of talking about marrying her. Aren’t you--”

“I’m _going to_ ,” Tony said, his nostrils flaring, and he stood up, recovering his shoes. He tugged them on, neglected to tie the laces, and started down the stairs. 

Ty followed, in his bare feet, down the stairs, out the door, down four blocks of paved sidewalks in the dark, until his soles itched, the skin rubbed raw. 

They stopped in front of Meredith’s house. 

The lights were out. 

Tony rang the bell anyway.

No one answered.

He rang it again, and then again, successively, a string of ding-dongs echoing from inside. 

“Tony,” Ty said quietly. “Give it a rest. Nobody’s home.” 

Tony turned to him, shoulders slumped, and slid down the length of the door until he was sitting on the front stoop, wrapped his arms around himself, and shook. 

“They probably went out to dinner,” Ty said soothingly. 

He reached out a hand, nodded for Tony to follow him. 

Tony slept in Ty’s bed that night, arms slung possessively around Ty’s waist. If Ty moved away, Tony would reach out for him, clutch at him until he was back within grasp.

Ty could barely sleep. Every time Tony’s fingers brushed his skin, he felt a pulse, a charge, his breath came fast, and he had to make a conscious effort to slow himself again. 

And then Tony was up early-- before the alarm Ty had set; it was a school day, again, the glow of prom worn off, and the two of them walked to Meredith’s house again. 

There were still no lights. Ty stood on his tiptoes, peered into the garage. The cars were both gone. 

They walked to school, Tony dragging his feet, Ty stopping to coax him forward, reminding him that Mere _had_ to be at school, they still had to study for finals, if they failed, their acceptances to MIT would be revoked. 

They walked through the busy halls as if there was no one else around, like they were swimming upstream through a fast current, and took their customary seats in the back of their homeroom class. 

Everyone else filed in. 

No Meredith. 

Ty peered at Tony, watched his face blanch, watched him put a hand to his stomach. Tony went quietly up to the teacher and asked to be excused.

Ty didn’t ask. He just leveled a gaze at the teacher, challenging him to even try to keep him from following.

Tony barely made it to the boys’ room, barely crouched in front of a toilet, and all Ty could think was that it was convenient that it was first thing in the morning and the toilet seats weren’t covered with urine yet. 

Tony puked, puked up mostly spittle, since he hadn’t eaten since the day before, heaving and coughing and starting to sob again. 

“Tony. Tony, come on,” Ty said, and he held out a hand. 

Tony took Ty’s hand, and Ty squeezed. Tony’s hand was a little damp, very hot. 

“He sent her away,” Tony said in a raspy whisper.

“What?” Ty asked.

“Howard. He sent her away. He’s done it before, with-- with employees, and rivals, and...he paid them off. He sent her away.” 

“That’s silly, Tony. Howard wouldn’t--” Ty squeezed Tony’s hand again.

Tony glared at him. “You know exactly what Howard would do.” 

Ty couldn’t help but smile in spite of himself. He hoped Tony thought it was a gesture of comfort. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see tomorrow.”

Meredith wasn’t back tomorrow. Or the next day. 

On Thursday, the front page of the Business section of the New York Times announced that Howard Stark had bought out Creighton McCall’s New York laboratory. 

On Friday, Tony showed up at Ty’s house with a duffel bag. Ty took the bag from him, hefted it up onto his shoulder, and nodded for Tony to follow him upstairs. 

He planted the bag on the floor, shut the door to his room, and gave Tony a tight hug. “What do you need?” he asked. 

“What?” Tony replied, blinking. 

“Tell me. Ask me for anything,” Ty said. “I’ll do it. Whatever you need.”

Tony rubbed at his eyes, swallowed hard, hiccoughed, and then took a deep breath. 

“Don’t ever leave,” Tony said, quietly. “Promise you won’t leave.” 

Ty shook his head. “I won’t.”


End file.
